Leading countries in tropical timber trade and consumption in EU. A quantitative analysis

The EU is an important market for both legally and illegally harvested timber entering international trade. The demand from the European countries for tropical wood for national consumption or for trade reasons possibly is connected with illegally harvested tropical timber from origin countries in the Tropics, with the known subsequent degradation of forestland. In this study the trade in tropical timber that takes place in the EU is analyzed, and more specifically with four separate tropical categories. The leading EU countries in imports, re-exports and consumption are presented in order to underline their basic trading role in the European tropical timber market. Belgium is indicated as one of these together with France, Italy, Netherlands and UK. Belgium’s trade role was found to be significant, taking the leading role as re-exporter in sawnwood, veneer and industrial roundwood. The leader in consumption per capita seems to be the Netherlands regarding sawnwood and plywood, while Portugal ranked first in tropical industrial roundwood consumption per capita on average during the examined period. Italy seems to be a large consumer of tropical veneer. An analysis of some trade flows is also applied to better understand the role of the other trade partnerships inside the EU. The role of the EU in general with the parallel construction of policy instruments to combat illegal logging is also highlighted.